Now I'm VERY sure that stopping my job at UC Berkeley and starting my job at UC Santa Cruz was a most excellent idea. Looking forward to meditating in the Dead reading room at McHenry Library, a short walk from my office.

SAN FRANCISCO — It may be the ultimate collection of paraphernalia of a band known for its fondness of paraphernalia, legal and otherwise.

The Grateful Dead, whose songs celebrated personal freedom, American idealism and mind-altering drugs, will donate a cache of their papers, posters and props on Thursday to the University of California, Santa Cruz, which plans to use the musical miscellany as part of a research center to be known as Dead Central.

What exactly is to be donated, of course, is something of a mystery even to band insiders.

“It’s kind of a surprise box to us as well,” said John Perry Barlow, one of the group’s lyricists. “We’ll get to find out what’s in there as well.”

University archivists say the collection was drawn from the band’s various studios and business offices and dates back to the Dead’s founding in 1965. Among the items are rare photographs, press clippings, stage props, vintage posters, backstage passes and set and guest lists for some of the band’s innumerable concerts, which were famed for their lengthy jams and die-hard tape-swapping followers, the Deadheads.

The head of special collections and archives at the university, Christine Bunting, said much of the material to be unveiled Thursday at the Fillmore, the San Francisco rock club, was in fact sent to the band from Deadheads, including band-inspired artwork and personal letters.

“And lots of, you know, poems,” Ms. Bunting added.

Unfortunately for fans, the collection includes no new music from the group, which formally disbanded after the death of the guitarist and singer Jerry Garcia in 1995, though some members have continued to play together occasionally. Ms. Bunting said much of the material, which covers about 2,000 square feet, had been in a warehouse at an undisclosed location in Northern California, but would be open to the public in a renovated room at the university’s library.

While the band inspired no end of drug paraphernalia, Ms. Bunting said none was in the collection.

The university, located in a hippie-friendly city 75 miles south of San Francisco, already teaches a popular undergraduate course about the Grateful Dead’s music, and is known as “a hotbed of current Deadhead culture,” said Bob Weir, the group’s rhythm guitarist.

Mr. Weir said the band had decided to donate the memorabilia in part to keep it from getting lost as years went by.

“It seemed to all of us that the stuff really belongs to the community that supported us for all those years,” he said. “And Santa Cruz seemed the coziest possible home for it.”

Who's Online

Online users

Newsletter

Get the latest news on Grateful Dead releases and more straight to your inbox.

By submitting your email address you acknowledge and agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and are okay with receiving news, updates, special offers and occasional marketing messages from us and our affiliates.

Newsletter

Get the latest news on Grateful Dead releases and more straight to your inbox.

Signup!

By submitting your email address you acknowledge and agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and are okay with receiving news, updates, special offers and occasional marketing messages from us and our affiliates.